Tamil Nadu's Lone Archer Aims for Gold at Khelo India Youth Games

Archery Under-18 competition is being held in Bhagalpur in the Khelo India Youth Games 2025 going on in Bihar. Tamil Nadu's young archer Smran Sarvesh is also presenting his challenge in these games going on at Sandis Compound. He is the only player from Tamil Nadu who is representing his state in this category in Khelo India Youth Games 2025.

Sarvesh has entered the final of the men's recurve individual event in archery at Khelo India Youth Games 2025 and now on Thursday he will aim for gold in his title match. Sarvesh's mother is working as Superintendent of Police i.e. SP in Tamil Nadu and now his son is ready to aim for gold in archery. Sarvesh is to face Ujjwal Bharat Olekar of Maharashtra in the final on Thursday.

Sarvesh said, "I hope that I will not repeat the mistake I made in the last two tournaments here. My performance in the first round was not that good, but today I came with a different mindset. I played my game with all my heart today. I hope that this time I will return with a gold medal in the final.''

16-year-old Sarvesh has participated in three championships so far. For the first time, he participated in the Youth International Championship held in Taipei in September 2024, where he finished fourth. After this, he also presented his selection in the Asia Cup held in Bangkok, Thailand in February this year. He was also in the top-8 in his category in Dehradun in February.

He said, ''Ever since I was five years old, my mother wanted me to play shooting. But to start this you should be at least eight years old. My mother felt that some practice should be done to start shooting. Both are similar sports, so I started doing archery to practice.''

Under the Khelo India scheme, players get Rs 10,000 every month and Sarvesh is also included in that scheme. Sarvesh has recently given his 10th class exam. He is getting scholarship from his state Tamil Nadu, as well as scholarship from Reliance Foundation.

Talking about the benefits of scholarship, this young player from Tamil Nadu said, '' I am also a part of Khelo India's scheme. A young player gets a lot of help from this. Apart from the scheme, we are getting full support from the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Sports Federation. When I started getting scholarship, I started getting interested in this sport. At this age, when you start making a career, scholarship helps a lot.''

When asked what is your next goal after Khelo India Youth Games 2025? So he said, '' My next target is to win a medal in the Youth World Championship to be held in Canada in August this year. Trials for this championship are to be held in Pune on the 22nd. My next goal is to become the champion in this tournament. But right now my entire focus is on Khelo India Youth Games 2025 and I want to win a medal in it and go to the next event.